Keith Hallgren of RBF Cycles is a longtime four-season cyclist. He builds and fixes bikes, teaches courses on winter cycling and, full disclosure, he also built the winter bike of Green Energy Futures editor Duncan Kinney. According to Hallgren there are three keys to being a successful winter cyclist.

Unlike the past, when professionals led transport planning in Toronto, transport planning today has become the exclusive purview of poorly informed politicians. To have any chance of addressing gridlock, transit planning has to start with professionals who actually understand real needs and alternative solutions before political choices are made.

On an average weekday, 1.6 million people use public transit to navigate Canada's largest city, relying on the Toronto Transit Commission's four subway lines, 11 streetcar routes, and more than 140 bus routes to reach their destinations. Writer Dominic Ali spoke with University of Toronto expert Matti Siemiatycki about where Toronto's transit has been and where it's heading.

Frankly I think it's at least partially our fault as an environmental movement that this framing has stuck. We haven't focused enough on specific solutions over the years. We have opposed bad ideas like pipelines with vague notions of carbon taxes or non-specific alternative energy projects. We have rarely proposed or even broadly supported specific alternative projects.

Building and managing a world-class supply chain is difficult regardless the economic climate. Transporting goods quickly and efficiently is a complex task that requires coordinating and managing a number of variables within a fast-paced and volatile environment.

What no one ever told me was that these dashing men exist amongst an array of trashy crude catcallers who tend to prey on twenty-something, English-speaking women. To my dismay, I learned this in the worst possible way.

Clearly the Government of Canada doesn't have an HSR policy, but surely it's time it did the minimum? A basic and badly-needed step would be to lay the policy and political tracks for a future ''blue sky'' proposal regarding high-speed rail.

Rather than impugning divestiture, the AGs report confirms that divestiture is the right approach. While it will take 7 or more years to recover the combination of divestiture costs and unfunded pension liabilities, the Government of Ontario will save and estimated $73 million annually afterwards according to the Auditor General's report.

As governments here in Canada wrestle with the challenge of providing high-quality transportation infrastructure, they should increasingly consider public-private partnerships, or P3s. The record shows P3s are more likely to be built on time and on budget, and they offer greater value for money than conventional infrastructure projects.

I am currently advising a board whose company is a target for a terrorist attack. Many other companies in transportation, utilities, defense, property development and financial services could take a page from below. Here are six areas for boards to focus on to prepare for a possible terrorist attack.

As you walk into the Cowichan Biodiesel Cooperative's processing facility in Duncan B.C., it really does look like a microbrewery. Tanks, pumps, hoses and other assorted machinery are all reminiscent of the brew master's trade. But unlike the yeasty, worty smell that you get at a brewery, the biodiesel processing facility has the faint hint of French fries.

Ever since the 1950s the car has been the accidental architect of our cities. Billions of dollars have been dedicated to roads, overpasses, tunnels and other car infrastructure. Enter the bicycle. It is the most efficient form of transportation on the planet.

Vancouver's Bixi public bike-share program may sound like good public policy but in the end, it will be taxpayers who will get taken for a ride. Why are they paying for bikes when the car shares have proven transportation co-ops and businesses can be sustained without taxpayer dollars?

The billions of dollars that the US sends to Middle Eastern countries to import is a choice. This has led Amory Lovins to state that there's more oil in Detroit than in Saudi Arabia. There's actually no oil in Detroit, but the reluctance of auto executives to pursue higher fuel efficiency standards, imposes billions of dollars of cost on North American companies and car owners.

Inter-city bus ridership has declined over the last few decades in Canada. This is largely because driving has become cheaper. It's time that the government start auctioning off subsidies to the lowest private bidder. This would be a win for riders, and a win for taxpayers.

At first glance, the Canadian Pacific Railway contract fiasco of the early 1870s is the granddaddy of all Canadian scandals. But only the tip of the iceberg has been recounted ad nauseam by historians. The real story is far more gripping, and is actually one of the more fascinating events in Canadian business and political history.

Drivers already pay for transit at the gas pump. Asking them to pay even more is wrong and will damage the long-term economy of B.C., as the vast majority of our goods and services are transported by fuel-powered vehicles. Adding cost to those items hurts both business and consumers.

Expanding the availability of low-cost air travel would be one of the most progressive policies that the federal government could undertake. Our outdated airline regulations are bad for consumers, bad for Canadian businesses, and bad for prospective airline industry employees.